Manitoba Permies?

I'm pretty new to the site, but i couldn't find any threads about members in Manitoba, so I thought I'd get one fired up. Anyone out there in Manitoba?

I'm not sure if I would be classified as a "permie" yet. Just a fairly new gardener who stumbled across the concept a short while ago and trying to implement a few ideas as we develop our acreage. It seems to bring together many threads that have been woven through my life over the years into one coherent philosophy. I'm looking forward to the experimenting and exploration ahead.

I'm definitely not a "permie" either, but I'm always working towards it. I just try to make things as natural and sustainable as I can. Learn new things all the time. What part of the province are you in? I'm north of Selkirk.

We are just west of Brandon. Kemnay actually, 8 miles west on the #1.

Hi!

I'm just East of Winnipeg.
Also not really a Permie, but I do like most of the topics here and find the discussion interesting. I am definitely a bit of a freak in the Manitoba prairie farming community. Hippie parents and all those things. I don't look at a lot of topics in a very "traditional", my family has worked this land this way for 100 years, kind of way. I think most things can be improved upon, and there are many things that were done better in the past. Modern does not always equate better, sometimes Great Grandpa knew a few things as well. Of course just because my Dad did something doesn't mean I should. Sometimes he was an idiot as well.

Anyway, nice to see that there are other Manitoba members on here.

Been lurking here for a while... I am unfortunately just a reader, getting ideas and making plans for when I move and get a plot of land, or a house with a nice backyard. About a year to go until I have enough dough accumulated...

For now, I rot in Thompson haha

Good luck to all stuck down south. Hopefully nobody gets flooded with that dyke breach...

I made sure that when I bought land it was situated outside of the '97 flood plain.
No sense buying land that is inherently got a annual flaw.

I have only so much sympathy for those that choose to live by the river. Those that were born there and inherited that land I can understand, but those that bought the land after seeing the floods? Sorry but you made that decision.

Good luck with your search for land. Make sure you have fun with it.

I am just starting out.  I want to raise chickens and am looking for information on feeding them...The people around me simply supply massive amounts of grain.  Is there anything else I can provide ?  Is there a source of reasonable organic grain I can use for feed ?

I am also looking for someone selling raw milk.  Know anyone ?  in Winnipeg/Steinbach vicinity...

Thanks

I do not know of any certified organic grain producers in the area. There is a lot of grain available for what I consider reasonable prices. But that depends on what is reasonable to you.
There are also local producers that will mix and grind feed of any type. Prices are about 60% the price of commercial feed.

The cheapest thing is to grow your own stuff. That could be anything from grains to vegetables, and insects. Beetle and fly larvae are easy to raise. Get a little inventive and it is easy.

You'll have to be carefull with the raw milk enquiries. It's legal if you own the cow and drink your own milk, but someone else selling you raw milk can get into a heap of legal troubles. Selling a known killer like ciggarettes is perfectly OK but heaven help the farmer caught selling raw milk! How messed up is that??

So do any of you grow melons? I'm always looking for tips on how to do it better. I figure if I get really good at it, I'll start growing the big Texas style watermelons and sell em at the end of my driveway! Right now I've got some medium watermelons, muskmelon and california canteloupe. I start them indoors really early, then put them out into cold frames.

Yeah I'm stuck in Thompson too. I have been waiting for my Crown Land Permit to start on the old trembec sawmill site across from Ospawagan. I have seven acres and I am expecting to get started this summer out there.

Surprisingly there is a lot you can do in Thompson (so there is hope for everyone). I will incorprorate some permaculture ideas but not all as I think there are not enough native species to use commercially up here. The nonnatives will need some babying. I have had success with a lot of berries and even grown small melons and grapes up here, so a lot is possible though if this weather keeps up nothing will grow here.

I'll be documenting the process of creating my little hobby farm from the bare soil that's there now. Will be putting in some greenhouses too. I'll keep you up to speed.

If anyone knows where I can find some quality grass fed beef in manitoba please let me know.

Hi Jeff
Check out www.harvestmoonsociety.org
It's located in Clearwater,MB.  There is info regarding all the framers connected to it.
I love their chicken run/deer fencing/vine climber idea noted on the latest newsletter.

Right here in the heart of Winnipeg. Going to start an urban permaculture garden for the first time, once the asphalt is gone from the back 'yard'.

Hi Jeff,

If you want/need help, let me know! I just moved into a rental house in the Juniper area, landlord gave the ok to grow veggies and whatnot, so i'll be trying out all the theory that i've been learning on here.

Thought NOBODY else in Thompson would be into permaculture, glad to see I was wrong!

New user from Transcona.
Stumbled into Paul's stuff while looking for some aquaculture stuff.

Parents own a farm in SW Manitoba, so i have a farm background as they say.

Started doing some backyard gardening last year and trying to expand that this year.

Hey Adrien (and all),

Got my GP and will be planting the seven acres out this week. The site is awesome! There is a massive huegel bed already to be covered already on the property. There is an abundance of rotting sawdust (poplar aspen) for mulch, two small ponds for water and lots of scrap wood. Site was an old sawmill site. Couldnt ask for a better site. Heck there is even some slope there. Now I must get a gate up as people have been stealing stuff from the site.... stole 50 windows I was gonna use for a greenhouse. anyways give me a call (im in the book) and Ill show you the site one of these days. Oh and yeah there are a few permies here in Thompson.

Hello Manitobans
I'm near Neepawa & am in my first year of land owning/ permaculture creation. So far I have a few chickens & gardens & huge plans for whats next

Hey 'tobans! I'm IN the heart of Winnipeg too! I live in Transcona and I'm quickly enjoying this site for new ideas. Not really a permie but definitely some neat ideas on here. My wife and I have raised garden beds that we're going to turn into some hugelkulture beds this year. They won't be huge in height but should still store enough moisture so we won't need to water more then a couple times a year!

I'm also hoping to make a rocket stove boiler to heat our house next winter. Haven't decided if I want to run the water through piping under the floors for heated floors or through a heat exchanger in the furnace for forced air heating. Lucky for me I have a few months to decide.

Curious to see some of your projects and how they are coming along.

Hi Mark. I'm in the West End. I'd love to watch & help with the rocket stove project. Hopefully learn a bunch from your project and do the same or similar at my place. Keep me posted.

James Stark,

How early is early for muskmelons in MB?

This threads a couple years old now but hopefully someone sees it! We moved from BC a year or so ago and rented in brandon for a short time. Weve recently bought an acreage just north of souris a few miles. I came across this website and its awesome! Didnt kmow there was any kind of name for how we are working towards living but good to know theres others around here. Were working towards being able to raise and grow 80 pwrcent of our food off our land and have our garden going in this year and theres an old orchard area that will be part of it as well. Veggies. Herbs. Flowers. Berries. Apples pears and plums. And will hopefully add layers and meat birds this year and eventually a couple steers and berkshire hogs. A earth greenhouse with tires for the walls, and getting lots of other inspiration off here! Would love to connect with some like minded people around us! Hope to hear from someone.

Hey Mike, welcome to the neighbourhood! I'm just a few miles north of you in Kemnay. Small world, eh?

Yes. Very haha. What ya workin on in kemnay? This site has given us so many great ideas to working towards a more relaxed cheaper life and ultimately having more time at home eventually. Cant wait for spring to be here as we have nothing to help with gardening etc in the winter yet.

Hey Mike, we are on a 1 acre lot right in Kemnay. Built a house and garage last year along with small chicken coop and run. A few fruit trees started and a garden. Hoping for lots more berries, cherries, plums and pears this year. Also planning on bringing in some sea buckthorn and hybrid hazelnuts.
If you are new to the area you might not have come across eBrandon.ca which is the most active local online community. A new discussion thread just popped up today re a local permaculture get together.

Hey. Yah i actually started that post haha. Would be great to start forming some kind of group. Montly meets etc. Interested?

Absolutely. I've PM'd Flutterby already. Just a word of caution, my wife knows her from a different setting and she's a VERY strong personality. But, maybe it takes someone like that to get something going?
I hope it materializes. I look forward to meeting you.
What do you have going on at your place so far? Just getting settled?

Do you have email? Maybe easier to chat back n forth if youd like?

Sent you a PM

Hey Mike, welcome to Manitoba and Permies.
I'm originally from BC as well. Been here a long time though.

As much as it might, at first, seem like there aren't many people into permaculture and other related topics in Manitoba, that isn't true. There are a lot of us. The problem I discovered is that many don't consider themselves to be into that kind of thing. They don't speak the same language. Their ideas are very similar and what they do is similar, they just don't call it permaculture.

I've spent time in the Brandon and Souris area and I've met a few people that do different aspects of permaculture there. But they call it gardening and farming. Or it's building and landscaping. Same just different terms.

Talk to people and you will find them. You just might need to use different terms from what is used on the West Coast. The people are the same though. All good and doing good things.

I seem to have tapped into a few people fairly close to me now. Where abouts are you located and what have ya got going on? Any gardening tips? We were involved with some in bc but night and day coming here in the gardening world. This will be our first season with our garden in. Althpugh i did plant some garlic in the fall so well see how that turns out

Just for interests sake... We did more work on creating a garden on the property. I tilled a couple thousand pounds of manure and hay into good top soil in the spring. Randomly planted a bunch of stuff and just let it grow. Grew tonnes of green growth as expected. High nitrogen in the soil. Started tilling it all back in this fall and creating raised beds. Piled some partially rotted hay between the beds at freeze up. In the spring I'll add a layer of straw to the hay and create paths between the beds. I'm planning to keep layering the paths each year with green and brown and have composting paths that should feed the beds from the bottom up.

Thought it might be interesting to see how it works.

East of Winnipeg on a small piece of land. Building it all from the ground up. Lots of work and it takes forever doing it ourselves, but I enjoy it.

We are very open here so the wind is a big consideration with planting anything. It will stunt or kill many things. I have trees that should be fast growing that struggle in the wind because it causes so much stress.

The sun in the winter scorches things much more as well. Remember that the sun is worse in the winter here. I wear sunglasses just as much in the winter as in the summer. Young trees and shrubs need protection if you want them to grow fast.

This is a province of extremes when it comes to weather.

That being said I have grown zone 5 plants that should have died in the cold. You just need to protect them properly.

I need to add that I am learning that part of my problem with trees may be that my prairie land may not have the fungi in the soil that trees need to grow properly... Hence the slow growth.

Upper limits of homesteads in MB

Hi all, I'm looking at some different tracts of land in MB including one just a few km south of Riding Mtn National Park. It's a mix of forest and grasslands/pasture and it's on the border between zones 3a and 2b. Most of the other land I'm looking at is further south in MB, or in the place where I grew up, mid Missouri, where it's just a teenie bit warmer.

I was wondering if anyone has any advice regarding permaculture design in land that's so far north in MB. Do you recommend against this, or do you know of people who have succeeded in sustainable permaculture up there?

Thanks,
Hugh K

Hey, just stumbled across this site and was surprised to find some Manitoban's pretty close to my neck of the woods I'm in between Deloraine and Boissevain in the very south western corner of Manitoba, just a few miles from the ND border.

I've grown up in this area for all of my life, and my husband and I bought a little acreage last year near Lake Metigoshe, for anyone that is familiar with this area. It's 10 acres and we are butted right up to the side of a ravine. Our farm has the amenities for critters, which we will be getting in a few years (actually I'd love to turn our place into a rescue farm, I'm a vegetarian so we won't be raising anything for the freezer). And, a large garden..that I've been struggling with for 2 springs to try and combat the weeds! I think it was neglected for a few years and it's straight up thistle apocalypse in there with some portulaca. :/
We are in the midst of building a new home on our place (bought the acreage for the yard, definitely not the old farm house we're currently in) and once the dust has settled with that we're talking about creating an orchard on part of our land. We currently have a few fruit tree's (3 apple tree's and a cherry tree I planted this year) but plan on doing more herbs, veggies, and planting some more fruit tree's and bushes. I would love to get a bee hive and try my hand at that as well, and we do plan on getting some chickens next year for eggs and pets

Nice to 'meet' some fellow neighbours! I grew up about 20 minutes south of Souris, it's a nice area in there.
And, I'd definitely be down for a permies meetup if those have ever happened! Any one Feel free to PM me or send me an email kirbiecooper@gmail.com

Hey! I just joined this site and it's awesome that there's other permies in Manitoba. I'm currently in the East Kildonan neighbourhood in Winnipeg, "farming" up my yard and learning as much as I can about homesteading to one day farm. Ahhh one day...
Anyways, I hope to learn a lot on this forum...and I can't be a full apprentice or intern right now because I have a baby, but if anyone would like some help on their farm, I would be up for that!
I'm interested in permaculture on a decent scale (10+ acres), chickens & ducks, bees, Icelandic sheep (triple purpose- especially for the dairy), permaculture orchard, grafting, mushroom, flowers, foraging, hunting, other homesteading skills, that kind of stuff. So it would be great to learn from some other people! Pm me if you're interested!

Hi all, I am in the Interlake region, close to Stonewall. Crazy rocky here. I am just starting on my permaculture journey. I was unaware of permaculture until about a year ago and everything I have read so far is what I had envisioned for my farm, but with better lists of plants. I'm doing most of the work on my own, so it is very slow going. I am looking for fruiting trees for my "orchard" and a tractor with a backhoe that is cheap. Hoping to have at least my market garden producing this summer. Currently planting tree and shrub seeds that I have collected all year.

Rachelle Pinto wrote:Hey! I just joined this site and it's awesome that there's other permies in Manitoba. I'm currently in the East Kildonan neighbourhood in Winnipeg, "farming" up my yard and learning as much as I can about homesteading to one day farm. Ahhh one day...
Anyways, I hope to learn a lot on this forum...and I can't be a full apprentice or intern right now because I have a baby, but if anyone would like some help on their farm, I would be up for that!
I'm interested in permaculture on a decent scale (10+ acres), chickens & ducks, bees, Icelandic sheep (triple purpose- especially for the dairy), permaculture orchard, grafting, mushroom, flowers, foraging, hunting, other homesteading skills, that kind of stuff. So it would be great to learn from some other people! Pm me if you're interested!

Hi Rachelle!

I'm also in Winnipeg. I was going to suggest that you look up the Northern Sun Farm Cooperative if you're interested in learning more about permaculture and homesteading. I've been there a couple times and it's a decent long standing intentional community. There is a wealth of experience to be learned there. One of the women, Dawn, moved there with an infant and lived in a tent for a winter, another guy designed and built their windmill, and another raises some of the best wild honey I've ever tasted.

I am quite a knowledgeable forager, myself. I trained under Laura Reeves, http://www.psbotanicals.com/about/, when I was living out in the country and love gathering wild edibles. There are so many places to collect stuff in the city. I also am a proficient chicken butcher from being raised on a farm.

Your dream sounds beautiful. I'm headed that direction myself as soon as I have a down payment.

PM me any time!